Chapter 31
Ella told herself her friendship with Roly wouldn’t have lasted anyway.
It was never meant to be forever, and it had already long outlived its use-by date.
They’d had a good run, but it was always going to peter out eventually.
For some reason they’d both dragged it out beyond its natural life span, and they’d managed to sustain it for far longer than either of them could have reasonably expected.
But they’d just been delaying the inevitable.
It had always bewildered her how Roly, of all people, was the one person from school she’d kept up with.
Their friendship had never made sense. And as for anything else…
They’d both been kidding themselves. This was a good thing, she told herself, bringing their weird dalliance to a conclusion before they got in any deeper. It could never have worked long term. A cold blast of reality was just what they needed to bring them to their senses.
It was the same self-talk she’d given herself the first time, after the fallout from Marty’s party.
It was just as unconvincing now as it had been then, and, like then, she couldn’t stop crying.
She dragged herself through the days, just about managing to hold it together at work, then rushing home to spend the night crying her eyes out.
Getting ready for work now involved a ritual of cold facecloths and lots of camouflage-work with concealers and highlighters to hide her ravaged face.
She’d never spent so much time on makeup to so little effect, simply trying to achieve some semblance of normality.
It turned out she wasn’t doing as good a job as she’d thought. On Friday morning, Jake came and perched on her desk.
‘Are you okay, Ella?’ His eyes were full of concern.
‘Yes.’ She gulped. ‘I’m fine. Thanks.’ Heartbroken, but otherwise fine.
‘You don’t seem yourself lately. We’re a bit worried about you.’
‘We?’
‘Me and Dylan. Kerry. All of us. We’ve noticed you’ve been… well, you look like you’ve been crying a lot.’
She nodded, tears clogging her throat and welling in her eyes. Shit! She was going to lose it completely if he was kind.
‘I don’t want to pry, but if you ever need to talk…’
‘Thanks,’ she managed to choke out. She took a deep breath and swiped at her eyes. ‘It’s just… I’ve fallen out with Roly.’
‘Oh no. I’m sorry to hear that.’
She nodded. ‘I’ve moved out. But it’s fine. I’ll be fine.’
‘You have somewhere to stay?’
‘Yes. I’m back in my mum’s house.’
‘Okay.’ He nodded. ‘Good.’ He waited a moment in silence, giving her space to talk, but when she said nothing more, he slid off the desk. ‘Well, if there’s anything we can do…’
‘Thanks.’
As she watched Jake walk away, she looked around at the brightly lit office with its colourful pods and sofas, all the smiley, bubbly people with their bright smiles and enthusiasm, and wondered what the hell she was doing here.
She didn’t belong in this place. It was only ever meant to be a stop-gap, a temporary arrangement that, like her relationship with Roly, she had let go on too long.
Somewhere along the way, she’d lost sight of her goals and allowed herself to drift off course, tossed around by the tide until she was completely at sea, and about as far from her planned destination as she could possibly get.
Maybe the split with Roly was the wake-up call she needed.
She’d completely abandoned her dreams and ambitions.
What had happened to getting her life back on track?
All those wasted years when she’d been ill hadn’t been her fault.
But now every year, every day, every moment that she wasted was down to her, and she felt the weight of regret at the thought of losing one more second.
What was she doing here, dicking around with patent applications for someone else’s inventions and funding proposals for someone else’s business? She could only ever be on the sidelines in this world, cheering on the real players, watching someone else win. She should be chasing her own dreams.
She had to take charge of her life again and carve her own path, find her own way to where she wanted to be.
She’d made some headway on paying off her debts, and Hazel was right, it was never going to be the ideal time to go back to college.
She had to stop letting herself get side-tracked, and take steps to get back to the life she wanted – and there was no better time to start than right now. She grabbed her phone and called Hazel.
* * *
That afternoon, she found Jake and Dylan huddled together over a laptop in one of the pods, and asked if she could have a word with them in private.
‘Yes, of course.’ Dylan shot her a worried look, and Jake immediately snapped the laptop shut and picked it up as he stood. They brought her to the meeting room and shut the door. Ella smiled as she sat on the sofa opposite them, reminded of the day she’d come here for her interview.
‘I’m glad you’ve decided to talk to us,’ Dylan said. ‘Jake told me you’ve broken up with Roly. I’m really sorry.’
‘Oh! Well, I wouldn’t say broken up. I mean, I didn’t say broken up. We were just friends, really.’
‘But you were… together?’
‘For about five minutes. It hardly seems to count.’
‘Right.’ Jake nodded. ‘Sorry. Anyway, the point is, you’re upset. If you want to talk about it—’
‘We’re all ears.’
‘Dylan’s actually really good at this stuff.’
‘Yeah, I’m a very good listener,’ Dylan said. ‘I’ve done years of therapy, so I’ve picked up quite a lot.’
‘All our friends go to him for advice.’
‘So if you want to talk through what happened with you and Roly—’
‘You know you can always talk to us. Anytime. Our door is always… non-existent.’
‘Thanks.’ Ella gulped, so touched she was afraid she was going to start crying again.
‘You guys seemed great together,’ Dylan said. ‘I’m sure it isn’t anything that can’t be fixed.’
She shook her head. ‘It can’t. But it’s not about Roly. I mean, that is the reason I’ve been such a basket case. But it’s not what I wanted to talk to you about.’
‘Okay.’ They both looked at her expectantly.
‘I, um… I want to give my notice.’
‘Oh.’
‘Oh no!’
They looked stricken, and Ella immediately felt awful, like she’d kicked a puppy, two puppies.
For a moment they just stared at her in shocked silence, and she felt a wave of self-loathing as she looked at their earnest, open faces.
She wished they’d be blasé about it, behave like the brash, callow idiots she’d first thought they were.
But they wore their hearts on their sleeves, and it was plain to see they were upset.
‘So, talk to us,’ Jake said, rallying. ‘What’s the problem?’
‘We thought you were happy here.’
‘I am. I was.’ Ella brushed her jeans, feeling as awkward as she had that first day. ‘It’s nothing to do with you, or this place.’
‘You’re saying it’s not you, it’s me?’
‘Yeah. I guess. It’s just… I’d always planned to have an academic career.’
‘Right.’ Dylan nodded. ‘But you’re so good at this.’ His eyes were wide, pleading.
‘Sometimes the best things in life are the things we didn’t plan for ourselves,’ Jake offered.
‘Yes!’ Dylan leaned forward eagerly. ‘I was gutted when I had my knee injury and they told me I couldn’t play rugby any more.
I thought I was going to have this brilliant career, playing for Ireland and everything.
That was all I wanted to do with my life.
But then I got injured, one thing led to another, and I ended up here.
We started this company, and it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me.
I never thought I’d say that about being in business, and if you told my eighteen-year-old self that, he’d say you were crazy.
But I love coming to work every day. I wake up feeling excited about coming in here, and I’m much happier than I’d have been playing rugby for a living. ’
‘Plus your career would nearly be over by now if you were playing rugby,’ Jake chipped in.
‘I’d have become a commentator, though – or gone into coaching. I could have been the hot rugby coach at a girls’ school.’
‘You still wouldn’t be able to go out on the piss every weekend,’ Jake said. ‘You’d have to stay in shape.’
‘Well… I’m pretty fit anyway.’
‘Not match-fit, though.’
‘Don’t listen to him,’ Dylan said to Ella. ‘I’m very fit. If I get the call, I’m ready.’
She smiled. She was going to miss this. Miss them.
‘So,’ Jake said, in business mode again. ‘Talk to us. What can we do to persuade you to stay?’
‘More money? A promotion?’
Ella shook her head. ‘I don’t think you can. Sorry. Like I said, it’s nothing to do with you. It’s been really great working here, and I’m so grateful for the opportunity you’ve given me. But it’s… time to move on.’
‘Are you leaving us for someone else?’ Jake asked.
‘Well, yes. A friend of mine has offered me a research assistant post at Trinity.’
‘Research assistant!’ Dylan’s eyes widened. ‘I don’t imagine that pays much, does it?’
‘No, it doesn’t. But it’s in my field. It’s what I’ve always wanted to do – what I’d planned to do before I got ill.’
Jake turned to Dylan. ‘I suppose if you’d got over your knee injury and been offered the chance to play for Ireland, you’d have gone for it.’
‘Honestly, I don’t know.’ Dylan directed his answer at Ella, his blue eyes wide and sincere.
‘I mean, yeah, if I’d been offered that when I was nineteen or twenty, I’d have bitten their hand off, no hesitation.
But now, if I could go back and talk to my twenty-year-old self, I’d say don’t do it.
Honestly. Don’t do it because there are better things coming, and your life is going to be so much more than you can imagine right now.
Because the thing is, even if I could have gone back to it then, it still wouldn’t be the same as if I hadn’t had that injury in the first place. Do you see what I mean?’
‘Yes, I do. I get it. I know I can’t change the past. Those lost years will always be lost. But just because it’ll be different doesn’t mean it can’t be as good – or better even.’
Dylan threw his head back against the sofa and sighed. ‘Wow, this so isn’t what I expected you to say when we came in here,’ he said with a laugh. ‘I thought I was going to be giving you advice on your love life.’
‘Roly isn’t my love life.’
‘Relationships, then. Whatever. That’s what I’m good at.’
‘You’re pretty good at the life coach stuff too,’ Ella said wryly. She was surprised how insightful he could be.
‘He’s wise beyond his appearance,’ Jake said.
‘We really don’t want to lose you.’
Ella felt a pang. Was that what was happening? Would she be lost?
‘You’re the best person we’ve ever had here,’ Jake said. ‘And that’s including me and him.’ He nodded to Dylan.
‘Look,’ Dylan said, ‘you’re upset about the Roly thing. Maybe now isn’t the best time to be making big life decisions. Sometimes when one part of your life goes wrong, you make drastic changes in other areas that turn out to be a mistake.’
‘Spoken like a man who bought a pair of leather trousers after his last break-up.’
Dylan laughed. ‘Yeah, heartbreak can come out in ways you don’t expect.’
‘He’s right, though,’ Jake said. ‘Why don’t you go away and think about it for a while?’
‘My friend needs an answer soon or she’ll have to take on someone else. But don’t worry, I won’t leave you in the lurch. I’ll work my month’s notice.’
Jake gave a defeated sigh. ‘Okay, well… we’ll talk to Kerry and she’ll sort out the details. But if you change your mind at any point—’
‘You’ll be the first to know.’
* * *
Ella felt like she was walking around under a cloud for the rest of the day.
She seemed to have cast a pall over everything, and there was a heavy, morose atmosphere around the building.
She’d never seen Jake and Dylan so downbeat, their usual bounce and vigour gone.
They looked troubled and dejected, their shoulders slumped and their expressions solemn.
In the afternoon, Kerry came to speak to her.
She’d heard the news and said how sorry she was, but Ella couldn’t help feeling there was a slightly accusatory look in her eyes too.
She couldn’t wait to get home that evening.
She’d expected to feel more light-hearted and positive once she’d made her decision, but instead she felt leaden, weighed down with guilt for letting everyone down.
She told herself she had no reason to feel guilty.
It was her life, and she didn’t owe Jake and Dylan anything.
They’d been good employers, and she’d been a good worker – it was a fair transaction on both sides, but that was all it was.
She was expendable, and they’d replace her easily.
No one could replace her in her own life.
But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t seem to convince herself.
It wasn’t fair. She’d taken control and done something positive for herself.
She should be feeling proud and purposeful.
She was on her way to the life she wanted.
So why did she feel so bloody sad? It was probably the break-up with Roly, casting a shadow over everything.
She’d feel better once she started working in Trinity.